Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. — Volume 2

by Henry Hunt

TO THE INDEPENDENT ELECTORS OF BRISTOL.

GENTLEMEN,—Your city, the third in England in point of population, and for the bravery and public spirit of its inhabitants the first in the world, is now become, with all those who take an interest in the public welfare, an object of anxious attention. You, as the Electors of Westminster were, have long been the sport of the two artful factions, who have divided between them the profits arising from the obtaining of your votes, One of each faction has always been elected; and as one of them always belonged to the faction out of place, you, whose intentions and views were honest, consoled yourselves with the reflection, that if one of your members was in place, or belonged to the IN party, your other member, who belonged to the OUT party, was always in the House to watch him. But now, I think, experience must have convinced you that the OUT as well as the IN member was always seeking his own gain at your expense, and that of the nation, and that the two factions, though openly hostile to each other, have always been perfectly well agreed as to the main point, namely, the perpetuating of those sinecure places and all those other means by which the public money is put into the pockets of individuals.

With this conviction in your minds, it is not to be wondered at that you are now beginning to make a stand for the remnant of your liberties; and, as I am firmly persuaded, that your success would be of infinite benefit to the cause of freedom in general, and of course to our country, now groaning under a compilation of calamities, I cannot longer withold a public expression of the sentiments which I entertain respecting the struggle in which you are engaged; and especially respecting the election now going on, the proceedings of a recent meeting in London, and the pretensions of Mr. Hunt, compared with those of Sir Samuel Romilly.

As to the first, you will bear in mind, gentlemen, how often we, who wish for a Reform of the Parliament, have contended that no Member of the House of Commons ought to be a placeman or a pensioner. We have said, and we have shown, that in that Act of Parliament by virtue of which the present family was exalted to the throne of this kingdom; we have shown, that by that Act it was provided that no man having a pension or place of emolument under the Crown, should be capable of being a Member of the House of Commons. It is indeed true, that this provision has since been repealed; but it having been enacted, and that too on so important an occasion, shows clearly how jealous our ancestors were upon the subject. When we ask for a revival of this law, we are told that it cannot be wanted, because, if a man be a placeman or a pensioner before he be chosen at all, those who choose him know it; and if they like a placeman or a pensioner, who else has any thing to do with the matter? And, if a man be made a placeman or pensioner after he be chosen, he must vacate his seat, and return to his constituents to be re-elected before he can sit again; if they reject him he cannot sit, and if they re-choose him, who else has any thing to do with the matter?

To be sure it is pretty impudent for these people to talk to us about choice, and about re-choosing and about rejecting, and the like, when they know that we are all well informed of the nature of choosings and re-choosings at Old Sarum, at Gatton, at Queenborough, at Bodmin, at Penryn, at Honiton, at Oakhampton, and at more than a hundred other places; it is pretty impudent to talk to us about members going back to their constituents at such places as those here mentioned; but what will even the impudence of these people find to say in the case of those members who, upon having grasped places or pensions, do go back to their constituents, and upon being rejected by them, go to some borough where the people have no voice; or who, not relishing the prospect, do not go to face their former constituents, but go at once to some borough, and there take a seat, which, by cogent arguments, no doubt, some one has been prevailed on to go out of to make way for them? What will even the impudence of the most prostituted knaves of hired writers find to say in cases like these?

Of the former, Mr. GEORGE TIERNEY presents a memorable instance. He was formerly a member for Southwark, chosen on account of his professions in favour of freedom, by a numerous body of independent electors. But having taken a fancy to a place which put some thousands a year of the public money into his own individual pocket, having had the assurance to go back to his constituents, and having been by them rejected with scorn, be was immediately chosen by some borough where a seat bad been emptied in order to receive him, and now he is representative of the people of a place called Bandon Bridge, in Ireland, a place which, in all probability, he never saw, and the inhabitants of which are, I dare say, wholly unconscious of having the honour to be represented by so famous a person. Your late representative, Mr. BRAGGE BATHURST, has acted a more modest, or at least a more prudent part. He has got a fat place; a place, the profits of which would find some hundreds of Englishmen's families in provisions all the year round; be has been made what is called Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, which will give him immense patronage, and of course afford him ample means of enriching his family, friends, and dependents, besides his having held places of great salary for many years before. Thus loaded with riches arising from the public means, he does not, I perceive, intend to face you; he cannot, it seems, screw himself up to that pitch. We shall in all likelihood see in a few days what borough opens its chaste arms to receive him; but, as a matter of much greater consequence, I now beg to offer you some remarks upon the measures that have been taken to supply his place.

It was announced to his supporters at Bristol, about three months ago, that he did not mean to offer himself for that city again, and Mr. RICHARD HART DAVIS, of whom you will hear enough, came forward as his successor; openly avowing all his principles, and expressly saying, that he would tread in his steps. What those steps are, you have seen; and what those principles are, the miserable people of England feel in the effects of war and taxation. But, I beg your attention to some circumstances connected with the election, which ought to be known and long borne in mind. The WRIT for electing a member for Bristol, in the room of Bragge Bathurst, was moved for in the House of Commons; on Tuesday evening, June 23, and at the same moment a writ for electing a member for Colchester, in the room of Richard Hart Davis, was moved for. So you see they both vacate at the same instant; your man not liking to go down to Bristol, the other vacates a seat for another place, in order to go down to face you in his stead. Observe too with what quickness the thing is managed. Nobody knows, or at least none of you know, that Bragge is going to vacate his seat. Davis apparently knew it, because we see him vacating at the same moment. The WRIT is sent off the same night; it gets to Bristol on Wednesday morning the 24th; the law requires four days notice on the part of the Sheriffs; they give it; and the election comes on the next Monday. So you see if Mr. HUNT had been living in Ireland or Scotland, or even in the northern counties of England, or in some parts of Cornwall, the election might have been over before there would have been a POSSIBILITY of his getting to Bristol. And though his place of residence was within thirty miles of London, he who was at home on his farm, had but just time to reach you soon enough to give you an opportunity of exercising your rights upon this occasion. Mr. Hunt could not know that the writ was moved for till Wednesday evening, living, as he does, at a distance from a post town; and, as it happened, he did not know of it, I believe, till Thursday night; so that it was next to impossible for him to come to London (which I suppose was necessary) and to reach Bristol before Saturday. While, on the other hand, Mr. Davis had chosen his time, and of course had made all his preparations.

Such, Gentlemen, have been the means used preparatory to the election. Let us now see what a scene your city exhibits at this moment; first, however, taking a look at the under-plot going on in London, in favour of Sir SAMUEL ROMILLY.

It is stated in the London newspapers, and particularly in The Times of Saturday last, that there was a meeting on Friday at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, the object of which was "to raise money" by subscription for "supporting the election of Sir Samuel Romilly at Bristol;" and it is added, that a large sum was accordingly raised. This meeting appears to me to have for its object the deceiving of the electors of Bristol; an object, however, which I am satisfied will not be accomplished to any great extent. I do not mean to say that Sir Samuel Romilly would use deceit; but I am quite sure that there are those who would use it upon this occasion. The truth is, that the raising of these large sums of money (amounting already, they say, to 8,000_l_.) proves that Sir Samuel Romilly does not put his trust in the FREE VOICE of the people of Bristol. At this meeting Mr. BARING, one of the persons who makes the loans to the Government, was in the chair. This alone is a circumstance sufficient to enable you to judge not only of the character of the meeting, but also of what sort of conduct is expected from Sir Samuel Romilly, if he were placed in Parliament by the means of this subscription. Mr. WHITBREAD was also at the meeting, and spoke in favour of the subscription. But we must not be carried away by names. Mr. Whitbread does many good things; but Mr. Whitbread is not always right. Mr. Whitbread subscribed to bring Mr. Sheridan in for Westminster, and was, indeed, the man who caused him to obtain the appearance of a majority; Mr. Whitbread supported that same Sheridan afterwards against Lord COCHRANE; and though Mr. Whitbread is so ready to subscribe now, he refused to subscribe to the election of Sir Francis Burdett, notwithstanding the election was in a city of which he was an inhabitant and an elector. These, Gentlemen, are facts, of which you should be apprised; otherwise names might deceive you.

I beg to observe also, that at this meeting there was nothing said about a Parliamentary Reform, without which you must be satisfied no good of any consequence can be done. There was indeed a Mr. MILLS, who said he came from Bristol, who observed that "the great majority of the inhabitants of Bristol felt perfectly convinced of the necessity of SOMETHING LIKE Reform." And is this all? Does your conviction go no farther than this? I remember that, when a little boy, I was crying to my mother for a bit of bread and cheese, and that a journeyman carpenter, who was at work hard by, compassionately offered to chalk me out a big piece upon a board. I forget the way in which I vented my rage against him; but the offer has never quitted my memory. Yet really this seems to come up to the notion of Mr. Mills; the carpenter offered me SOMETHING LIKE a big piece of bread and cheese. Oh! no, Gentlemen, it is not this something like that you want; you want the thing itself; and if Sir Samuel Romilly meant that you should have it, do you believe that neither he, nor any one for him, would have made any specific promise upon the subject? Even after Mr. Mills had said that you wanted something like Reform, there was nobody who ventured to say that Sir Samuel Romilly would endeavour to procure even that for you. His friends were told, that if he would distinctly pledge himself to Reform, whether in place or out of place, Mr. Hunt, who only wished to see that measure accomplished, would himself assist in his election; but this Sir Samuel Romilly has not done, and therefore he is not the man whom you ought to choose, though he is beyond all comparison better than hundreds of other public men, and though he is, in many respects, a most excellent Member of Parliament. Gentlemen, these friends of Sir Samuel Romilly call upon you to choose him, because he is, they tell you, a decided enemy of the measures of the present ministers. Now they must very well know, that all those measures have had the decided support of the parliament. Well, then, do these friends allow, that the parliament are the real representatives of the people, and that they speak the people's voice? If Sir Samuel's friends do allow this, then they do, in fact, say, that he is an enemy to all those measures which the people's voice approves of; and, if they do not allow this, if they say that the parliament do not speak the people's voice, and are not their real representatives, hove can they hope that any man will do you any good who is not decidedly for a reform of that parliament? Let the meeting at the Crown and Anchor answer these questions, or, in the name of decency, I conjure them to hold their tongues, and to put their subscriptions back again into their pockets.