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VOL. 71.-No. 12.]

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 19TH, 1831.

ON

THE REFORM BILL.

PARSONS,

TO THE

HAMPSHIRE PARSONS.

Kensington, 15 March, 1831.

[Price 1s. 2d.

shaken to their very foundation? Have you forgotten this, Hampshire Parsons? To be sure, it is now fourteen years since I gave you the warning, and you have the tithes, yet, in name, at least; but do you feel as if you had them? Do you feel as if you were going to have them to the end of your lives? As you are sitting over your bottles, and wiping the grease from the corners of your mouths, do you not muse a little, now and then, on the strange change that has taken place since I met you last in your grand convocation? Do you laugh at people who talk against pluralities and non-residents, as you used to do? Do you still belch out your insolent invectives against reformers? Do you still wield the magisterial sword with the vigour and gaiety that you did fourteen years ago? Do you ever pick up a JESSE BURGESS now-a-days to play off upon the country against any one whom you deem an enemy of your craft? Do you know what is become of the bevies of the tax-eaters, who went all over the country in carriages, scattering little tracts to calumniate me, in the years 1809 and 1810?

I HAVE often taxed my powers of invention to find out another name for you; some appellation more fully descriptive of what you deserve; but, after hunting about, backward and forward, I always come back again to Hampshire Parsons," being able to find nothing, in all God's creation, to resemble the animal described by those two words. Well, then, Hampshire Parsons, do you NOW recollect your conduct in the month of March, in 1817? Do you recollect when you, on the eleventh day of that month, at Leaving you to answer these questions Winchester, met in grand convocation to at your leisure, let me express my hope present an address to the Prince Regent, that you will join us, the day after toexpressive of your approbation of the morrow, in thanking the King and his bills just then passed for shutting the Ministers for the famous bill which reformers up in dungeons at the plea- they have now before the Parliament. sure of Sidmouth and Castlereagh? Do Let me hope, that you who have alyou remember that, upon that occasion, ways been for the powers that be; who you had that little dull fellow, WILLIS have always praised the acts of the Go(now called FLEMING), for a High vernment, be they what they might; Sheriff? Do you remember your roaring who applauded it for twenty-two years insolence upon that occasion; and do of war and of waste; who have never you remember that HOLLEST, his Under found fault with any-thing done by any Sheriff, had the audacity to threaten to Parliament, at the instigation of any take us into custody, if we remained Ministry who were the servants of any upon the spot after FLEMING had or- King; let us hope that you will now dered us to depart? But, do you re-join us in praising this great measure member that, on that day, I warned you of Reform. If I find you not there, that, before that day ten years, your ready to join us, I, for my part, shall tithes and your church, and your every-call aloud for you. In the year before thing belonging to you, would be mentioned, you galloped from one end

N

of the county to the other, to rake to- out of his office, and bereft of all power, gether a crew to carry an address, because, and only because, he had exapplauding the horrible bills which plicitly declared that he would make doomed the reformers to dungeons; no reform of the Parliament. - It was and will you now hang back! Your the people that had driven him out; -pretence then was, that the reformers mind that, Parsons: it was not the were disaffected, and that it was neces- Parliament. The Parliament liked him sary for you to come forward in sup- well; but it could not keep him and port of the King and his Ministers. carry on the thing quietly. The new Well, Parsons, and are not the borough- Ministry, therefore, were compelled, mongers now disaffected; are not the whatever might have been their inBARINGS, the PEELS, the CROKERS, the clination, to promise a Parliamentary HORACE TWISSES, now disaffected? reform. And to satisfy the people it ~Are they not now raising their violent required nothing short of a total devoices against the Ministers and the struction of the rotten boroughs; and a King; and is it not now your duty, great extension of the suffrage. It was then, to come forward in support of this not sufficient that the new Ministry Ministry and this King? If I find you absent the day after to-morrow, I shall * certainly think you the most inconsistent of men, and what I shall say of you 'God only knows.

promised a reform: it was necessary that the reform should be extensive and satisfactory. A trifling reform could not have saved the Ministry for a day. They would have been in a worse situation than Louis-Philippe with his sham revolution. The people insisted upon a large and efficient reform.

The Ministers have now tendered them such reform. In this reform they see the thing that they wanted. It is not precisely what many of us wished, but it is quite enough to satisfy all reasonable men; and the people will have it. Now, then, Parsons, though I do not like to plunge you into despair, I ask you whether it is reasonable to suppose that this measure of reform is to be defeated in spite of King, Ministers, and people, all combined, and with nobody but the base boroughmongers to oppose

But, Parsons, you hardly imagine that this reform is to be productive of no consequences! You hardly suppose, I take it, that it is intended to produce no effects. If this be your notion, *never were men more deceived in this whole world. It has been made because the Government could no longer go on without it. A reformed Parliament must, therefore, act differently from this borough Parliament. If the reform produce merely a change of men, it would be of no use whatever; but it will produce a very great change >of another sort, and will thereby enable the Government to go on. In what manner and what degree that change them. will reach you, I leave you to settle It is a question which has, I am sure, amongst yourselves when you meet at been a thousand times put to me: your benches, whence you send poach-"Can you possibly believe, Cobbett, ers to dance on the tread-mill.

"that the Parliament will ever reform "While there is life there is hope;" 66 itself? Did you ever know power and accordingly you, I dare say, enter- pronounce its own death? Can you tain strong hopes that this fatal measure" believe that those who sit for the will not pass into a law. From the boroughs, will vote the destruction very first, it was evident to all men of " of their own seats? And can you sense, that this hope was groundless." expect a reform from any cause but The case was this. Before the Reform "that of physical force?" My answer Bill was proposed, it was evident that the Ministry must propose a measure that would satisfy the people, or be driven from their posts. The Duke of WELLINGTON had actually been driven

always has been YES: and I have repeatedly said in the Register, that I hoped and believed, that, at last, when the people were united and resolved, the borough-holders would give way;

that some Minister or other would at † : -“ recommends to the two Houses

- last be found wise and honest enough

to make the proposition that the borough holders would stand out stiffly; that they would die hard ; but that when it came to the pinch, they would give way, and that thus the reform might be effected by a moral and not a physical force.

66

"

those who

At the time when this was written, though little more than six months ago, I not a man in England expected to see what we now behold. The thing will

“to pass a law to enable the "people at large freely to choose "the members of the Commons"House, excluding from the right " of voting no man who has at¬ *tained the age of twenty-one, "who is of sanee mind, and who "has not been legally convicted of Nay, what is that which we now be-- "an infamous crime." hold but the almost literal fulfilment “Clap W. R at the bottom of that, * of an opinion expressed and published" and then we should see whether they by me in a very few days after the" would pass the law Pass it! Aye present King came to the throne, in the" would they, and with double dilliRegister of the 17th of July, in a pas-" gence! They would, without a dissage which I will now quote. "Your"senting voice, thank you for your Majesty must clearly see that this gracious message, express their gratifeebleness of the country arises from" tude to you for the wise suggestions "the wants of a due representation of “contained in it, and promise to set the people in Parliament. What have" about the work with all zeal and you to do, therefore, but to cause that" industry; and they would keep the "due representation to be restored?" promise too." “But,' some one will say, "fill the seats now would not pass a "law to do this. Would not they! "Oh that your Majesty would but try { "them. I beseech, I pray, I implore you to try the worthies. Let them be done well now: but it would have "finish their elections,' as they call been done better by a message from the "them; then instantly call them to- King; because then, there would have "gether; make no speech to them, but been no doubts and no intrigues and no merely send them a message in some- rumours upon the subject. There would what the following words :have been none of this cavilling on the "The King informs the House of part of the borough-holders; all the "Commons [the same to the ill blood would have been spared, and Lords], that he has called them it would have been better for all parties. "together for one important pur- To hope that the bill will not be pose, and for that purpose only.carried, argues almost insanity. I al Upon coming to the throne, he ways thought, that the Ministers would “finds, from a careful examination propose a great measure of reform or "into the state of his kingdom, go out without proposing any. If they "whether in its foreign relation-proposed such reform I knew that they ships or in its domestic concerns, must carry it; and when I heard the "that there has been for many nature of the reform described, which years great mismanagement; I heard before Lord JOHN RUSSELL "that the country has sunk in the had finished his speech, I gave it as my "eyes of the world; and that his opinion that the bill would not only "people are in a state of ruin and be brought in without a division; but "beggary, such as was never known that there never would be any division "to their fathers. The King has at all upon the principle of the bill; "traced these sad and disgraceful because, though I thought that there was "effects to the want of a full, free, a very great majority of the members "and fair representation of the opposed to the bill, I knew that, in the people in the Commons House present circumstances of the country, "of Parliament; and, therefore, he and of Europe, few men would like to

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