Sir Francis Burdett, Bart. Westminster; for the Petitioners.
Sir James Graham, Bart. Carlisle; for the Sitting Members.
SITTING MEMBERS.
Richard Hart Davis, Esq—Edward Protheroe, Esq.
PETITIONERS.
1st. Henry Hunt, Esq.—2nd. Wm. Pimm, T. Pimm,
Wm. Weech, T. Gamage, Electors.
Counsel for Mr. Davis, Mr. Warren and Mr. Harrison.
Counsel for Mr. Protheroe, Mr. Adam & Mr. Randle Jackson.
Mr. Hunt appeared in person for himself and other petitioners.
The parties were all called to the bar of the House, when the names of the Committee were called over, and the 26th was appointed for commencing the proceedings.
On the 26th of February, 1813, the Committee assembled at twelve o'clock, and I opened the proceedings by an address of about two hours in length, in which I laid before them my case; a case containing a detail of the evidence by which I meant to substantiate the charges and allegations contained in the petition. The hearing of this petition lasted fourteen days, and it concluded by the Committee deciding "that the Sitting Members were duly elected, but that the petition was not frivolous or vexatious." So each party had the pleasure of paying his own costs. My expenses I estimated at about six hundred pounds. The whole of the mighty subscriptions which I was to have received from the friends of Sir Samuel Romilly, amounted to the amazing sum of TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS, and no more; which sum exactly paid one of my witnesses, Mr. Alderman Vaughan. I have heard since that there was a much larger sum subscribed; but, if it was so, somebody else took care of that. I can only say that was the whole amount that ever came to my hands, or was ever appropriated to pay any part of the expenses that I incurred, Many of my friends paid their own expenses to London and back, as witnesses, and raised a subscription to pay the expenses of other friendly witnesses; and I believe some of the petitioners were sued for some expenses afterwards. It was calculated that the sum expended by the sitting members in resisting the petition, was not less than four thousand pounds. All that I can say is, I am quite confident that had the Committee been chosen from a House of Commons fairly elected by the people of England, or had they been the honest representatives of the people of England, instead of being, as they were, the representatives of corrupt and rotten boroughs, and corrupt and rotten influence, I repeat, I am quite sure that I proved abundantly sufficient to have rendered it a void election. But it must be borne in mind, that this Committee was chosen from as corrupt and profligate a Boroughmongering Parliament as ever disgraced the Parliamentary annals of once free and happy England.
I now retired once more to my farm, at Rowfant, in Sussex; and although pretty much minus in pocket, I had yet the gratification of being conscious that I had done my duty to the people of Bristol, and had effected a great national good, by the exposures which I had made of the corrupt state of the representation, even in what was called a popular representation of a populous and free city. So satisfied were the people of Bristol with my exertions, that they invited me down to a public dinner, as a testimony that, although I was unsuccessful, still the Citizens of Bristol were not insensible of the services which I had rendered them, by making an effort in their behalf, and fighting so gallantly their battle and the battle of Reform. I was received with every demonstration of respect; and indeed with increased enthusiasm and attention by all classes of the citizens, except the corrupt factions and their corrupt and time-serving dependants and tools. These testimonials of respect and attachment to me, as the avowed champion of Radical Reform, were excessively galling to the Corporation, and to the corrupt knaves of attorneys, parsons, merchants, and pettyfoggers of all sorts, who lived on the taxes, and battened on the distresses of the people; those, in short, who were gorging upon the vitals of the poor, rioting in luxury, and wallowing in wealth, wrung from the sweat of the labourers' and mechanics' brows.